La Danse (Dance)

Jules Chéret was churning out 200, 000 posters a year by the mid-1880s, transforming Parisian streets into what art critic Roger Marx called an open-air museum. Chéret's signature was the chérette, seen here in her usual guise: radiant, fey, seductive. Yet Chéret's contribution to L'Estampe originale catered to collectors' tastes for the unique. Instead of the bold, circus feel of his mass-produced posters, this print is muted, intimate, and atmospheric. The light-handed use of the lithographic crayon only adds to the transparency of the chérette's notoriously filmy costume.